Upcoming Meetings

On December 4, 2018, the committee will discuss, make recommendations, and vote on information regarding the premarket application (PMA) for the OPTIMIZER SMART Implantable Pulse Generator device, sponsored by Impulse Dynamics (USA), Inc. This first-of-a-kind device is indicated to provide cardiac contractility modulation for class III heart failure patients who are not responding to optimal medical therapy.
On December 5, 2018, the committee will discuss and make recommendations regarding issues relating to the emergence of medical devices, which aim to treat hypertension. Currently, clinical studies to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of these devices are progressing. FDA requests panel input regarding the potential indications and labeling for devices intended to treat hypertension and optimal study designs needed to evaluate the potential benefits and risks while considering issues such as medication compliance, patient perspective, and appropriate study controls.

The committees will provide input and advice on strategies to increase the availability of naloxone products intended for use in the community. The committees will be asked to consider various options for increasing access to naloxone, weighing logistical, economic, and harm reduction aspects and whether naloxone should be co-prescribed with all or some opioid prescriptions to reduce the risk of overdose death. Because of the potential, significant costs and burdens that may be associated with naloxone co-prescribing (e.g., economic costs to consumers and health systems, adjusting to manufacturing volume growth, drug shortages), the committees will also be asked to consider the potential burdens that may be associated with naloxone co-prescribing for all or some prescription opioid patients.

Recent Meetings

On November 15, 2018, the Committee will discuss and make recommendations on the topic “Connected and Empowered Patients: e-Platforms Potentially Expanding the Definition of Scientific Evidence.” The recommendations will address how FDA can leverage patient-driven platforms, such as social media and registries, to better engage patients and consumers as empowered partners in the work of protecting public health and promoting responsible innovation. Social media and other web platform enablers are facilitating the growth of virtual patient communities. Increasingly, patients and health care consumers are using these platforms to share their health experiences and seek information from other patients and consumers, rather than their health care providers alone. Novel approaches and methodologies are being used to tap into some of these platforms as potentially rich sources of patient-generated health data, which could be used as relevant and reliable real-world evidence.
This meeting will help advance FDA’s objective to assure the needs, experiences, and perspectives of patients are included as part of FDA’s deliberations involving the regulation of medical devices and their use by patients. For this meeting, FDA is seeking input from the Committee and the public on whether and how FDA can harness the emerging potential of these patient platforms to better engage patients and consumers as empowered partners in the work of protecting public health and promoting responsible innovation. In addition, FDA is seeking recommendations from the Committee on ways to leverage these platforms to disseminate as well as potentially collect and evaluate health information to and from patients and consumers.

The committee will discuss the assessment of opioid analgesic sparing outcomes in clinical trials of acute pain. The committee will be asked to comment on the trial design and endpoints of these studies and how to determine the clinical relevance of the results.

The committees will discuss new drug application (NDA) 209774, for an immediate-release oral tablet formulation of oxycodone, which is intended to resist common methods of physical or chemical manipulation and to deter intravenous and intranasal abuse, submitted by SpecGx Inc., for the management of pain severe enough to require an opioid analgesic and for which alternative treatments are inadequate. The committees will also be asked to determine whether the Applicant adequately demonstrated that the abuse-deterrent properties of the proposed product are sufficient to include this information in the product label, and whether the product should be approved.

The committees will discuss efficacy, safety and risk-benefit profile of new drug application (NDA) 210417 for buprenorphine and samidorphan sublingual tablets, submitted by Alkermes, Inc., for adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder.

Agenda: On both days, the committee will
discuss the ``Guidance for Industry: Diabetes Mellitus--Evaluating
Cardiovascular Risk in New Antidiabetic Therapies to Treat Type 2
Diabetes' (https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/Guidances/ucm071627.pdf), and the cardiovascular risk assessment of drugs and
biologics for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.